One week left and counting, soon 2010 will be one for the record books. For many the last week of the year is looked at as a lost week. Holiday vacations, factory shut downs, and kids home from school for Winter break combine to slow the workday pace.Continue reading
Tag Archives: business tips
Free – Isn’t
Last week, I had the pleasure of listening to Lon Safko, co-author of the Social Media Bible speak to a group of counselors from SCORE and the SBDC as a prelude to Greater Phoenix SCORE’s Social Media Event this January 14th and 15th.
During his presentation, Lon kept emphasizing the reasons, excellent ones BTW, that businesses need to pay attention to and utilize social media. And repeatedly he punctuated his message with a continuing theme…Oh Yes! It’s FREE!
But is it?Continue reading
Leadership – The Importance of saying “Thank You”
One of the most important jobs of a leader is a simple one.
Say “Thank You” and recognize the hard work of others.
This photo, taken a number of years ago, popped up on in my son’s Facebook stream the other day. It had been posted by his friend Nick Roa and it reminded me of an important lesson that applies to leaders of all ages.
At the age of 13, my son Christopher was having a blast playing on his travel hockey team. His coaches instituted a great practice of having the players take turns saying “thank you” to the wait-staff in the restaurants where the team would gather with parents after each game. One night in Tucson, the boys voted for chicken wings and Hooter’s for dinner after the game. So that evening, young Chris had to stand on a chair, surrounded by beautiful women and make a speech thanking his team mates for a game well played and the ladies for their hard work. He did a great job. (It’s not everyday a leader gets to make a speech standing on a chair in a crowded restaurant surrounded by a bevy of beauties.)
There are a myriad of opportunities to say “Thank You” and even more ways to do so. Here are just a few:
- Instead of having the mail room pass out paychecks, have them sent to you and deliver them personally with a handshake, a smile, or a bit of praise on something that that person has done for the team.
- Pick up the telephone and speak to someone – a novel concept these days. Thank them for their business, their friendship, their support – make it meaningful and don’t expect or ask for anything in return.
- Double that Gratuity – the next time you are out to eat and the service is good. Don’t just write in the TIP on the slip – tell the waiter or waitress WHY you did it. This economy has caused restaurants to cut back on staff – so waiters and waitresses are doing more and in many cases getting smaller tips. It may just be a few dollars and a minute out of your day but it can mean A LOT to them.
- Carry an envelope of Dollar Bills and put them in every little red kettle you see. Then, THANK the Bell Ringer. Not only are you supporting the charitable efforts of the Salvation Army in helping people who need it – but you are recognizing the efforts of volunteers who stand for hours – in all types of weather – ringing that little brass bell.
- Thank someone for doing the little things. It may inspire them to do something big. You don’t have to ration Thank You’s – you never run out.
As 2009 comes to a close, many of us may feel that we have less to be thankful for than in other years. But, if you start to think about it and look for opportunities and ways to say thanks, you will find that they are all around you and that when you start looking for them – you’ll feel better about yourself AND get better results at work, at home, and in your community. Now that is something to be thankful for.
So, “Thank You” Reader – for stopping by. Stay tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker
Technorati Tags: Joan Koerber-Walker,CorePurpose,Saying Thank You,Leadership,Community,Business Tips,Results
Customer Service – Be Careful What You Automate
Few companies will argue that that customer service is important. We see messages relating to the importance of customers appear in mission statements, value statements, and strategic plans on a regular basis.
Yet, when you call these same companies, too often you reach not a customer sensitive employee, but instead an automated voice response unit or VRU. These marvels of efficiency creating technology are happy to give you a wealth of choices – often without an obvious or expedient option to talk to a real person. Worse, when you actually discover the secret code, you get a very pleasant voice sharing with you that ‘due to high call volume, your call will be answered in ____ minutes.” Sometimes the wait time is short, others not so short. My favorite was the company that shared how important I was as a customer and that the anticipated wait time was FORTY MINUTES. Then to add insult to injury, their hold message was bragging about their recent prestigious award for customer service!
Yes, reducing costs and increasing efficiencies is important. But, be sure you understand the REAL message you deliver to your customers by your service or lack of it.
As you can see in this humorous clip from my friend Dave Griffiths (@Bensonix on Twitter) automatons don’t make the best customer service agents or tech support staff.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOJrXlRT-60]
Thanks for stopping by. Stay Tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker
Drawing a Crowd in the Cabbage Patch
I was scanning some articles online this morning when I cam across a fun one at How Stuff Works titled 23 Must-Have Toys from the 1950s and Beyond. So I decided to check it out. Of the 23 ‘must haves’, only Strawberry Shortcake never made it into either my or my children’s toy collection. But it was the Cabbage Patch Kids that brought back the memory of how one innovative toy really drew a crowd.
Xavier Roberts was a teenager when he launched his Babyland General Hospital during the 1970s in Cleveland, Georgia, allowing children to adopt a “baby.” In 1983, the Coleco toy company started mass-producing these dolls as Cabbage Patch Kids. Each “kid” came with a unique name and a set of adoption papers, and stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves, selling more than three million of the dolls in the first year.
It was just before the Christmas holidays in 1983, and my fiance Chris worked at Coleco, home of the Cabbage Patch. EVERYONE was trying to get their hands on the little darlings – even employees. The company had to even hold a lottery for employees to be able to purchase them. So after months of lotteries, we had a small collection of six Cabbage Patch Kids ready for adoption.
I really did not give it too much thought when I lined up the ‘Kids’ on the back seat of my car and left my home in South Windsor, Connecticut on a Saturday afternoon to drive down to see our families in Danbury, Connecticut. But I got a real lesson on what it is like for an innovation to draw a crowd when I stopped at a McDonald’s along the way to get a Diet Coke. The young girl at the drive thru window saw into my back seat, and exclaimed!
WOW! Where did you get all those Cabbage Patch Dolls!
That’s all it took. Before I had even been given my cup, my car was surrounded by Moms, wallets and checkbooks in hand, asking me what it would take to sell them “Just One.” I explained that they were gifts and that they were not for sale, but finally the manager had to come out and move the eager Mommies away – before I could put my car in gear and make my escape from the drive thru. I learned a lesson that day…
When an innovation capture’s the public’s imagination – it draws a crowd.
Over twenty-five years have passed and I have seen many innovative new products come and go. Some are just a passing fad, but others have real staying power. As an investor, I look for those companies with inventions or solutions that can make life better in one way or another. Products or services that capture the imagination and can, with the right resources, literally draw a crowd in their chosen marketplace.
Some of these companies have been in technology – like when Bernie Vonderschmidt, the first Chairman and CEO of Xilinx, shared his vision of the next generation in silicon technology,the FGPGA, or when Dr. Michelle Hanna of RiboMed helped me to imagine a day when we could detect and treat diseases like cancer BEFORE it was too late and our loved ones were suffering. Others have not. But none of the innovations I have invested in have been toys. Perhaps because I never got over the experience of being ‘mobbed by Mommies’ at McDonalds.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker
Technorati Tags: Joan Koerber-Walker,CorePurpose,Innovation Quotes,Innovation,Products that capture the imagination,toys,how stuff works,Time Magazine 1983,Xilinx,Ribomed,
The ICK Factor
Millions of articles and blogs have been written on the topic of branding. Google the word ‘branding’ and you will get over 33 million hits!
Unfortunately too often, businesses spend lots of money creating and protecting their marketing message and not enough time protecting the value of their brand. Continue reading
Valuing a Company
From time to time, I get involved in answering a tricky question. “What is this company worth?” Sometimes the question comes up when speaking to a business owner or executive who is truly trying to increase the value of their organization. At other times 
the question is raised from someone looking for investors or buyers. And then most importantly – I ask it myself when the buyer or investor might be me.Continue reading
Go Forth and Raise Whuffie
In less that one month, entrepreneurs from around Arizona and from other parts of North America are gathering for AZEC09, The Fourth Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference which will be held in Tempe Arizona on November 12, 2009. Continue reading
The Best Marketing Strategy Ever
A business owner asked me the other day, what was the best marketing strategy ever? I did not have to think very long. To me, the answer is Southwest Airlines in its early days. In a day when Southwest was competing with industry giants to launch a new airline, they broke through and succeeded by demonstrating that they were the airline you wanted to fly by doing the following things.Continue reading
Is Twitter part of your business strategy? Should it be?
Earlier this summer, I was asked by my friend, Dr. Julie Smith David of the Arizona State University Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT) to present on Twitter Applications for Business. I will be speaking there on Tuesday September 8th. If you read this in time and would like to attend, the contact information is provided below. Best of all it’s free.
I was incredibly honored to be asked, but I had to wonder… why would they want ME?
I am not a social media expert let alone a twitter expert. I’m simply a business executive and corporate strategist trying to figure out where all this stuff fits.
I have yet to find all the answers, but one thing has become very clear.
Social media is simply a tool.
Think about your social media tool kit like a set of screw drivers. You have different types of screw drivers for different needs. Sometimes you use them alone or sometimes you use them together. We use screw drivers as tools to help us…
- Build things
- Take things apart
- Make adjustments
- Fix what’s broken
The same screwdriver can be used to fix a broken electrical socket or to build a nuclear power plant. It all depends on the the goal you set, the plan you develop, and how you go about executing.
The same can be said about social media. Websites, Video like YouTube and Vimeo, Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are simply tools we use to create conversations, build communities, listen to our customers, and deliver our message. These tools can help us as business people to do the very same things that the handy screwdriver can do – Build, Disassemble, Adjust, and Fix what’s broken.
Just remember – the tool is NOT the strategy. It’s simply something you can use to achieve the goals you set. Your message however IS a key component in any strategy. It’s how you share what you are trying to accomplish. That’s where social media fits for business – as a community building messaging tool.
You simply need to choose the right combination of tools to drive your message home.
Since Tuesday’s talk will be focused on Twitter – here are some tips for using Twitter as a tool for what it is best at: Community Building, Customer/Audience Interaction, and Message Delivery.
In any good strategy you start with a goal, develop specific tactics, choose your tools and people resources, establish metrics or milestones, and execute while adjusting as needed.
Twitter, like the screw driver, works best when combined with other tools for more complex projects. Here is a listing of tools and tips you can use with Twitter to make it more effective.
Community Building:
Twellow is a great tool for finding people with shared interests. You can search by key words like Information Technology, CEO, Entrepreneur, Leadership…you get the picture. You can also search by locations (City, State, etc) if you are trying to build community in a specific region. You can find people you want to follow and if you are offering good content in return, many will follow you back.
Conversely, for the people you might want to avoid – TwitChuck is a good resource. In a matter of minutes, it can scan your friends and followers to identify known spammers and other inappropriate tweeters like porn sites and bots. (You can also check your own reputation to ensure that you are considered a ‘Good” person to follow.
As you are getting started, and even after you are well established, Twitter imposes follow limits. These are important to know and understand. You can read them here.
Be Friendly! When someone follows you, I believe it is common courtesy to give them a follow back. If they then abuse the courtesy with spam or inappropriate content – you can unfollow them or even block them so they can not come back later. To save time you can automate this process using SocialOomph (formerly known as TweetLater.) This service will automatically follow people that follow you – a BIG time saver. The service also has a feature for auto replies when people follow you. This I highly recommend NOT doing. It is a common practice of spammers and by veteran twitter users is considered very uncool!
And whatever you do – DO NOT SPAM your followers. The point is to offer helpful information, share ideas, and create value to your followers. If all you do is talk about your products, your blog, your ideas and never interact with others – people will stop reading your posts very quickly! Even worse, people can block you – ruining your online reputation.
Also, unless you are intentionally forming a closed group – DO NOT protect your tweets. This is counter to the whole principle of building a community. Plus for many third party tools, they will not be able to see them and people will not find or follow you!
Customer/Audience Interaction
OK – you may be thinking – I am looking at this as a BUSINESS tool. What do you mean it’s not all about me and my product or service!
Think about twitter as a giant focus group. As you build a community you have an opportunity to listen to what current or potential customers are tweeting/talking about. People who follow you have shown some level of interest – their opinions count!
You can even use Twitter Search to find people who are talking about your company or your product – or your competitors. Talk about a great market research tool! Then you can choose to follow them and join the conversation.
Interacting with customers means listening, starting a conversation, and engaging them. To do this – think about what you want your Twitter brand to be before you start. It may be that you need multiple profiles for different customer groups, products, or for you corporate message as opposed to that of your CEO for instance. That was appropriate for me over time and in the end I developed FIVE different Twitter profiles based on the type of information I choose to share. This post helps explain it.
The first rule of interaction is always – You get what you give. Follow people, share interesting content, and offer value, and that’s what you will get in return.
Message Delivery
Now we get to the important part – message delivery. The point of Twitter for business is that you want to START a conversation that can be continued. Sometimes you can do that exclusively in the twitterverse, but more often that not, you want to be more expansive – that’s where your website, blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn Group, or other social media tools come into play. You can use Twitter to invite people to view your other content platforms. Does it work – Absolutely. Here is an example.
I have two blog sites for my company. One on TypePad and one on WordPress. They have exactly the same content and have been around for the same amount of time. The TypePad Blog gets promoted on Twitter. The WordPress blog using simple SEO. Now the real test. Does Twitter make a difference? YES! The TypePad blog has 100 times more RSS subscribers and 500 times more visitors after only 9 months! Oh and my website – CorePurpose.com gets more traffic today that it ever did with managed SEO alone.
How much time does all this take? I can’t be on Twitter ALL day!
This sounds like a lot of work and a lot of time. But after you get things set up efficiently, it does not have to be. Personally – my ‘Twitter Time – is less than 2 hours total each day – and that includes all of the reading of the articles and other tidbits I share that I would be accessing anyway.
Here are some of the tools that help me be more efficient.
Twitter itself is not the most user friendly interface for day to day management of large communities. If you are managing multiple profiles – Seesmic is my tool of choice. For single profile users, TweetDeck is also a popular alternative.
Going to be away from the computer and want to schedule tweets for a different date or time? Both SocialOomph and my favorite HootSuite can allow you to put your tweets on autopilot cleanly and professionally.
It’s up to you to determine how much time you give to Twitter. Just remember you get back what you put into it.
Lastly – if it turns out that Twitter is a key tool for executing your strategy, there are lots of professional out there that can be hired as in house community managers or outside consultants. These people can help you fast track your Twitter experience and in the long run save you time and hopefully get you towards your goal faster – plus they can help you stay on top of the latest developments.
This may be one of the longest posts I have written to date- but now you have what you need to get started. If you want to learn more about my personal journey in trying to figure out how all this stuff fits, visit the category section of this blog. You will find a section on social media and more musings there.
So does this work for business? You decide.
For me, my community – between my five Twitter profiles is over 22,000 after 9 months. My followers are focused on the areas I want to focus on. My website and blog traffic is up and so is my business. And, I have made new partnering contacts I could only have dreamed of before. So for me – It’s been worth the ride.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay Tuned…
Joan Koerber-Walker